No ideology has not ended – it has merely been depoliticised
What do we call woke ideology?
Am I the only person who believes that politics is lost for words. I really dislike calling people who promote censorship, attack our freedoms, deny the salience of the biological distinction between man and woman, obsess about their identity and racialise every dimension of life as social justice warriors. Why? Because the association of social justice with the intolerant and censorious behaviour of the Cultural Taliban flatters them with the positive connotation conveyed by the term justice.
Sometimes the practitioners of the cultural politics of identity are described as liberal or cultural Marxists. But anybody with the slightest knowledge and understanding of classical liberalism and of classical Marxism will know that movements like Black Lives Matter or Transgenderism have nothing in common with them.
Yet it is important to understand the content of what is often referred to as woke ideology and also to give it a name. I have been struggling with this question for almost a decade. Next week I will be publishing an essay titled;
No ideology has not ended – it has merely been depoliticised.
This is my first attempt to provide a historical and cultural context for the contemporary form of anti-democratic ideology.
I hope that you will decide to support my commitment to develop this work by becoming a paid subscriber. The stakes are high in the Culture Wars and there is much intellectual work to be done if we are going to rise to the challenge of winning the hearts and minds of the younger generations.
The Battle of Ideas
In the meantime I will be discussing the question of ideology at the Battle of Ideas festival, taking place at Church House, Westminster on 15 & 16 October 2022.
Come along and join the discussion
What do we mean by ideology and what forms do they take today? How does ideology differ from other categories, such as morality or political ideals? Do we live in an era of less explicit or even silent ideologies and, if so, what are the important systems of ideas today?
Other sessions I will be speaking on include:
Where do we draw the line between protecting children and giving them responsibility? Is it right to use state authority to criminalise childish behaviour? What does being a child or being an adult mean today?
In The New Puritans: how the religion of social justice captured the Western world, Andrew Doyle examines the underlying belief-systems of this ideology. How has it risen so rapidly to dominate all major political, cultural and corporate institutions?
I will also be discussing my new book:
Does the Ukraine crisis have its roots deep in the past? Have Western societies forgotten the importance of history? What can be done to reclaim a sense of historical thinking without becoming slaves to the past?
In Other News!
If you want to understand the current cost-of-living crisis - can I suggest you check out Phil Mullan’s ‘The Battle for Growth’ on Spiked